When The Wind Changes
by MadAsMoriarty
Summary: The Doctor and Clara answer a mauve alert in old London town. And meet someone the Doctor hasn't seen in an age.


"All you can eat jello."

"Yes Clara."

"Unending jello, you said."

"Yes Clara."

"More than I could ever eat."

"Yes Clara."

"I'd get sick you said."

"You did!"

"From _eating jello, _sick from eating jello Doctor! I don't know about you but I didn't eat any jello!"

"None?"

"No!"

"I'm pretty sure the high priest got a bit of himself in my mouth during the farewell ceremony." Clara gagged somewhere behind him. "Well, how was I supposed to know the jello would evolve into a sentient species?!"

"You're a time lord!"

"I can't know everything Clara!"

"You could've glanced at a guide book!"

"Oh, what is it with you humans and guidebooks? Take the mystery out of everything, why don't you?"

"When it comes to sentient food, I wouldn't really mind." She sighed. "I'll never be able to look at trifle the same way again."

The Doctor stopped his forward slog as the Tardis came into view, sedately parked between a pair of thickly vined trees. He turned baleful eyes on his companion as bits of the high priest's vaguely strawberry scented mucus dripped from his hair.

"Yes, alright Clara, you've made your point. No more food based planets- got it."

She gave him a sparkling smile and skipped past him to wiggle the Tardis doors open.

"I get dibs on the bath."

"It's a transdimensional time-ship! There's more than one bath!"

"Yeah, but I get the good one." She shot him a cheeky look and froze with one foot over the door jamb. "Woah." The Doctor stiffened behind her the beginnings of his answering smile fracturing on his face. Red light spilled from the Tardis' open doors, staining everything it touched a more macabre hue. "Doctor?"

Moving Clara gently aside the Doctor entered his ship, his companion half a step behind him. He took in the gently strobing lights and the more urgent glare that beamed from the monitor. Gallifreyan calligraphy dancing across it in swirls.

"What is it?" Clara asked, pressed comfortably close behind him.

"Mauve." The Doctor mumbled, ignoring the way it made something inside him catch.

"What's that mean?"

"Uh…" The Doctor blinked, hands twitching at his sides, squeezed his eyes shut against the colour and pressed his palms against his head. "It's a...warning. A- a- distress call. A message!" he lowered his hands and his voice. "Mauve and dangerous." he barely dared to breathe it, inching closer to the console.

"Whose sending it?"

"I don't know." The words came out too sharp, but he didn't know how to take them back.

"It doesn't say?" Clara's voice was unbearably gentle. "Can't be much help if we don't know who's asking."

"There are coordinates." He gestured vaguely at something Clara couldn't read, his attention never leaving the main text, his fingers coming up to trace it slowly.

"Coordinates to where?"

"England. London. Turn of the nineteenth century." there was silence except for the thrumming of the ship.

"You're getting a distress signal from eighteenth century London?"

"Nineteenth century, technically, and yes. Yes I am." the silence returned, neither of them doing anything to break it. The Doctor was rereading ancient circular script, his gaze going around and around. Clara was reading the Doctor, following the tight line of his shoulders and making note of the way his right hand trembled.

"Doctor?" Clara raised her own hand in a steadying gesture as the Doctor jumped, jerked, his focus never managing to leave the screen. Not sure if she truly had his attention Clara pressed on. "We gonna help them?"

The Doctor hesitated, his fingers hovering above the console. He reread the message one more time.

_HELP IS REQUESTED FROM THE DOCTOR, POST HASTE_

_EXTREMELY URGENT- M.P. _

The message could only come from a time lord. It had been written in Gallifreyan. The time-space coordinates had been distinct. They'd sent it to his Tardis _directly. _They'd asked for _him, specifically. _This wasn't a random radio transmission the Tardis had nabbed out of the aether. This was a missive. Signed and delivered. But signed by who?

It could only come from a time lord. But that was impossible. The time lords were dead. He knew that. He'd gotten his hopes up once and the ensuing turmoil had nearly cost him the Ponds. He wasn't going to make that mistake again. He wasn't going to risk Clara. So not a time lord. No. Someone else. Some_thing _else, perhaps.

"M.P., M.P." he chewed on the letters as he darted, heavy footed around the console, easing the Tardis through the vortex on the tail of coordinates that had been too easy to follow. Coordinates sent by a time lord, except that was impossible. Jello themed goo clung to the levers as he pulled them and dripped forlornly into the buttons, the Doctor spared a moment to wish he could've had a bath like the one Clara was currently enjoying, but this felt too important. Far, far too important. So he would suffer being sticky for a moment longer.

When the Tardis was comfortably in flight he pulled the monitor firmly back into his sightline, calling the message onto the screen.

"M.P.- Marigold princess, no, maverick...porpoise. That's rubbish. M.P., M.P...M, M-mmm..mmelody. Melody. Melody P. Melody Pond." for half a second he smiled, than his face caved into a frown. "Melody Pond?" he barked the words like a demand, giving his ship an accusing look. "Melody Po- is this River?" The Tardis gave her equivalent of a shrug and the Doctor stewed.

It couldn't be River. River was almost as impossible an option as the time lords. And the message didn't fit her style at all. The Doctor grumbled and pushed a few superfluous buttons. It could be someone attempting to _imitate _River. But it was a poor imitation at best. Growling in frustration the Doctor gave the monitor a hearty wack, as if that would provide some clarification. It didn't. It just made his hand hurt.

"M.P, MP, MP, MP M...P." he stared at the signature, the carefully input initials. It was impossible, of course, everything felt impossible today. It was twice as impossible as River. She was a time lord- lady, for one thing. And she'd been dead as long as any of the other time lords. Ladies. But he hadn't thought of her in so long… had kept her carefully locked away with the rest of his family, with Rose and Susan and a young boy called Koschei, that for a moment, just a moment, he indulged.

He wasn't sure what to do with the feeling that gentled through him. Wasn't sure if it was pleasant or painful, or some cruel mix of neither. It was almost like nostalgia, except it hurt more sharply. The Doctor chuckled in a way that was not humorous.

"Oh, Mar-"

"Okay, so." Clara chirped as she climbed the ramp, her hair in dripping tangles. "Bathing in a moving Tardis, not the easiest thing in the world." she studied him. Worry badly concealed. "We there yet?"

The Doctor shook away his strange melancholy, forcing a smile for his companion that did nothing to appease either of them.

"Nearly. Just waiting for you to be decent."

"A gentleman." Clara smiled in return. The Tardis began it's materialization. "Any idea what'll be waiting for us when we land?"

"No." the Doctor denied, thinking of River and time lords and a wife he hadn't seen since his planet burned. "No idea."

"So." The Doctor barked, whirling around the room and reapplying the armor he'd lost while Clara had been in the bath. "Nineteenth century- bit dark, not my favorite century, if I'm honest. Two world wars, a Great Depression- how sad is that? A great depression. Normal depressions bad enough and they go and make it 'great'."

"You're not the only one who didn't like it Doctor, you gonna wash up? You've got a bit of jello...everywhere." Clara swiped at the offending substance, but it just smeared wetly and stuck to her fingers.

"No time. Mauve and dangerous. Come on Clara." with more bravado than he was actually feeling, and wishing he was wearing something that didn't chafe quite so much, the Doctor strode into London.


End file.
